After several months of uncertainty, the takeover of a prominent real estate portal by a group of investors has been announced.
On the 20th October, Onthehouse announced its change of ownership, after orders with the Federal Court of Australia were officially launched.
As part of the scheme, a group of investors from Macquarie Corporate Holdings Pty Ltd and P1Q1 are set to acquire all of the company’s shares that aren’t already held on behalf of 77VSV. The agreed sale price is $0.85 per share, with both of the companies acquiring the shares as fully-owned subsidiaries of Macquarie Group Limited.
The scheme has been confirmed as effective by ASIC, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
When the scheme implementation deed was first announced back in July, Chairman of Onthehouse Tony Scotton reassured shareholders, stating that the transaction would be heavily beneficial to them:
“The consortium’s proposal, if implemented, provides shareholders with an immediate and significant increase in value without the risks inherent in transitioning our Console platform to become a cloud, software-as-a-service offering – something that we believe is critical for the platform – something that we believe is critical for the platform to retain its strong position in the market,” he said.
Onthehouse’s online division was sold on May 11th for $3 million to CoreLogic RP Data. Post-sale, Onthehouse geared its internal efforts towards nurturing its real estate software division.
The business are looking to use the extra funds to grow Console’s share in the real estate software market.